When delusions and lies spread across the land, we remain true to evidence.
We vote on our ballots, and we vote through the daily doings in our lives.
When educating ourselves and being well-informed gets derided, we go on trying to learn and we refuse to apologize for that.
We stay on the lookout for hubris, in our elected leaders and in ourselves.
When our children ask us what’s happening, we talk to them. We take them for a walk, no matter the weather, and we listen.
When we go outside, we also imagine what the land once looked like. This was forest, we say. Or, did you know that at one time this was actually underwater? Isn’t that something?
When we step through the neighborhood, we sometimes remember that we’re on a planet.
And we wake the next morning and go on. We try to appreciate all that we have. We resist lazy thinking, resist lazy citizenship. We resist the bellowing, sometimes violent fellow citizens who get mired in constantly repeated falsehoods or hubris or both. And we remember that they’re still our fellow citizens.
We summon grit, and ferocity at times. But we also aim for grace. Nothing soft about that. Grace lived in small and large ways each day, that can face down fear and bigotry and brazen attempts at theft, among other treacheries.
We keep working bit by bit, steady on, to counter the racism, greed, self-absorption, wild conspiracies, and mendacity that would break our country and world. We keep working to resist the demagogues and their enablers.
We carry ourselves and conduct our lives in ways that our kids can look to with love, trust, and faith.
And then we put on the most beautiful piece of music that comes to mind, and take a moment to breathe.